SACRED MEALS IN JUDAISM, OBLIGATORY FEASTS AND THEIR TYPOGRAPHIES (Hardcover)

Food and meals play an integral role in our lives. Whether they are snacks or ritualized meals such as family Sunday dinner, each has a significance, purpose, and meaning for the participants. This work will discuss the concept of se- 'udat mitzvah from a social-anthropological perspective and will also examine the rabbinic sources and customs related to se'udat mitzvah. My research has not unearthed or disclosed any scholarly works that discussed this topic in an encompassing manner. As Gross has pointed out, the study of food ways is "as if the subject were merely lighthearted, fun, and inconsequential, or a moment in which to indulge personal nostalgias, rather than studies of how people sustain, delineate, and organize themselves, raising questions of mea11ing, power, and authority at every tum."